r/Meditation

About two weeks in, I realized I was calmer for no obvious reason.

Before that, my default state was constant stimulation. Wake up, scroll TikTok. Bathroom, scroll Twitter. Bored, porn. Anxious, YouTube Shorts. I wasn’t even enjoying most of it anymore. It just felt automatic. Like my brain could not tolerate silence.

At one point I realized I hadn’t finished a full book in years. My attention span was destroyed. I couldn’t focus during conversations, couldn’t sit through movies without checking my phone, and felt weirdly exhausted all the time despite not doing much. So I decided to do a hard reset for 30 days: no TikTok, IG, Twitter, porn, Shorts, etc. Just books, journaling, walks, workouts, and long-form content.

Week 1: My brain kept reaching for stimulation every few minutes. I’d unlock my phone without even realizing it.

Week 2: Things got quieter. I started journaling and taking walks without headphones. I stopped feeling that constant low-level anxiety buzzing in my chest all day.

Week 3: I picked up a real book again and actually enjoyed it. My attention span started coming back way faster than I expected.

Week 4: The FOMO started disappearing. I slept earlier, felt more present in conversations, and stopped comparing my life to random people online all day.

A few things that genuinely helped:

* Move your charger outside your bedroom.

* Don’t rely on willpower. Add friction.

* Replace stimulation instead of just removing it.

* Most urges pass if you wait 10 minutes without reacting.

* Silence is uncomfortable at first because your brain forgot how to rest.

Here are some resources that genuinely changed how I think about dopamine, focus, and attention:

Dopamine Nation completely changed how I think about addiction and overstimulation. Anna Lembke explains why modern life keeps trapping us in dopamine loops and why quick pleasure slowly destroys our ability to enjoy normal life. This book genuinely made me rethink my habits around scrolling, porn, junk content, and even productivity addiction.

Stolen Focus made me realize my attention span wasn’t “broken” in isolation. Johann Hari talks about how modern apps, media systems, and algorithms are literally engineered to fragment human attention. Probably the most validating book I’ve read if you constantly feel mentally scattered.

Atomic Habits helped me rebuild routines after deleting everything. The biggest takeaway for me was that behavior change is less about motivation and more about environment design and identity shifts. Super practical book.

Another thing that helped me stay WAY more consistent with self-improvement was BeFreed. I work full-time and honestly struggled to finish books consistently even after quitting social media. What I liked is that it helped me replace doomscrolling with a focused learning system instead of just another form of content consumption. It builds personalized audio learning plans around your actual goals, ADHD tendencies, interests, and current life challenges using books, psychology research, expert interviews, podcasts, etc. I’d usually listen during commuting, workouts, walking, or chores instead of reaching for TikTok. You can also adjust the lesson depth, voice, and style depending on your attention span and mood, which weirdly made learning feel addictive in a healthier way.

Huberman Lab also had a huge impact on me. His dopamine and sleep episodes made me realize how much constant stimulation was frying my nervous system. Learning the neuroscience behind addiction honestly made me take my habits more seriously.

Struthless is super underrated if you struggle with procrastination, digital burnout, or feeling lost online. His videos feel less like “self-help guru content” and more like honest conversations about modern attention problems.

Freedom also helped a lot. Blocking social apps after 10pm genuinely fixed my sleep more than melatonin ever did.

I used to think I was lazy. Honestly I think I was just overstimulated. Once I stopped flooding my brain with constant dopamine, normal life started feeling interesting again.

I genuinely need help controlling my brain, its constantly active and some or the other crap is on repeat. Its like that meme "A person who thinks all the time has nothing but thought" type situation, and my thoughts are nothing but brainrot.

I seriously need help in rebuilding my focus, being capable of reading an entire page of text without forgetting what i was doing, I dont like this feeling of constant meme audios being played at random in my head, absolute random brainrot on repeat cant even study properly at this point to busy day dreaming about some or the other bs.

Anyone who as experienced this, Please help me

So I recently discovered the easiest wat to actually convience my mind that there's benefits in meditating is tell it this is not meditation, all im doing is just 'registering' anything in my body, sounds, thoughts, breath, just registering it and not 'focusing', because focusing means you spending energy to focus and my goal is to register things happening without 'focusing'.

The weird thing? I start to feel touches on my ears, face, legs,hands that are very light. it does not feel like it's normal, because I could even feel it on MY clothes, a gentle, slight touch.

I was like what the fuck? I opened my eyes (was laying in bed) then I saw a shadow figure standing infront of me that kept disappearing slowly as im focusing on it rather than my own thoughts/body. it felt like this shadow becomes clearler to see as I bring my attention to my thoughts while looking at it, then fades if i bring my attention at it.

wtf is this? Has anyone experienced this before? because those touches now is always present whenever i start being aware of everything around me..

T

Why have people found it so easy to express their hate online? I have often found, after being online, I feel the need to meditate to cleanse the pallet so to say, but this happens in real life too. Jon Kabbat Zinn said "I meditate because my life depends on it" How destructive do you think the net is to our psyche, and is there a particular technique you use after being triggered by these situations online or in real life?

Over the last few days or maybe a week, I’ve noticed something unusual when I meditate. By meditation, I just mean sitting quietly with a straight spine and observing my breath or bodily sensations.

When I sit upright, I start to feel a subtle upward pressure around my head, teeth, and jaw. It isn’t painful, but it feels noticeable enough to distract me. Sometimes a thought comes up like, “What if this pressure becomes intense at the top of my head?” Again, it’s just a thought — there’s no pain, only pressure.

I’ve also noticed that my breathing doesn’t feel completely relaxed when this happens. It’s almost like I’m breathing “through” the pressure. When I become very present and focus on the breath, the pressure seems to increase and I also fee a vibration around the top of the head.

If I fully relax my posture, stop trying to sit so straight, and let my body lead or hang a bit from the lower back, the pressure disappears and my breathing feels totally natural. But after a few breaths, the pressure gradually builds again.

My meditation practice is simple. I’m not trying to achieve anything intense or spiritual — I just want to sit in silence for around 20 minutes and observe the breath or subtle vibrations in the body. This pressure has been little annoying and confusing, and I don't feel like proceeding with the meditation so I stop.

For context, I also practice Ashtanga yoga at a studio for about 2 hours, 5 days a week.

Has anyone experienced something similar during meditation? Any guidance, pointers, or suggestions would be appreciated.

Just to Add: I get these types of thoughts - what if my soul / spirit leaves my body as its upward, I don't know what I am doing , what if something goes wrong etc - so I stop the meditation..

I want to start meditating and I’ve always had mixed messages on what to do when starting, I need some advice on how to prepare and how to breathe and what I’m supposed to think even, I know it sounds silly but I struggle with starting new things. If I dont think I’m doing it right then I just stress out and give up. So

1. how do I prepare
2. how should I breathe
3. what should I think
4. what can I expect from meditation
   5)how often and how long shall I daily
   Are my main questions
   Sorry for the long questions really hope you can share anything you know at all x

I live in South America, christianity has deep roots in my country so there isn't much presence of other religions or the practice of meditation. I really want to start meditating with the help of someone more spiritually advanced than me because I know I can't self-learn everything.

I don't even know if this problem has a solution right now and maybe this is just my mind making me think I can't advance correctly because I don't have a teacher, idk.. but I still wanted to ask if anyone has the same problem and knows what to do.

Hi!

I've been meditating on and off for years. I've done long stretches of 20-40 minutes a day, the longest I've done in one sitting is around an hour.

I used to feel clear-headed after meditating, and a lot of the time I would come back to reality with a clearer sense of what I needed to do next in life, and a sense of discipline to get it done. Sometimes I would feel like I was floating, or expanding, or spinning in multiple directions at once.

The idea I had of meditation was that the more I did it, the deeper I went into the experience of consciousness, that things were supposed to be revealed to me. And yes I recognize that this desire defeats the purpose, but also that I can't suppress or deny it so I have to walk that middle ground.

Whether the revelation is something spiritual, knowledge of the universe, or just repressed emotions in my brain. But after a certain point it felt like I wasn't seeing anything at all. I just hear my breath, and see the red of light behind my eyelids, and feel my foot falling asleep. And it doesn't feel like there's anything more to see, because all I'm doing is just breathing with my eyes closed.

To describe it differently, it feels like my consciousness isn't opening up to anything, it's pressing against a wall. And if there's some clear-headedness in an adjacent plane of existence, it doesn't feel like it's something I can reach through the mechanism of focusing on my breath.

I do have a total and consistent sense practically 24/7 that I'm not clear-headed. Like even my own emotions and memories are blocked off from me. And I do what I can to try to be clear-headed but nothing works. I thought meditation was supposed to help with things like that.

So I stopped a few months ago, just because it didn't feel like it was doing anything for me anymore.

Is this the lesson meditation teaches you? That you actually can't solve all the problems in your life through breath focus? Or am I just doing it wrong?

Is consciousness really the foundation of reality?

If everything is one, how can the illusion of separation even arise?

Why does the universe have one specific shape out of the infinite shapes it could have had?

Throwing those out there in case some modern Buddha happens across this haha

During meditation i saw all of these bright shapes/ colors.. that got more and more detailed. Bright colors like cyan, yellow, green, orange. Making different patterns and movements. I could look at them for awhile, sometimes the moved fast. It wasn’t forced, i just watched them. It’s hard to fully explain what i saw but just curious if this is a thing or just meant i was relaxed or something?

For the longest time I've thought about meditation in a way to generally calm my nervous system and to cleanse my body, but my priority is to change my lifestyle, way of thinking and feeling. I have problem with ED and that is what I mostly want to focus on along with my confidence and self love. I belive in spiritual healing, meditation, frequencies, I just don't know where to start and how to adapt and practice it in everyday life. I would say that I'm open mined (I have no problem with other religions and beliefs and ect.) so literally any advice and suggestions would do me good. Thank you for reading! :)

Can I replace bad habit with meditation at night.
Also how can I be consistent in meditation share some insights.

Hey All I've been experimenting with an ancient herbal blend botanicals traditionally used in mystical practice.

I noticed that inhaling it before meditation helped me settle faster than usual. Hard to explain exactly — just felt like something shifted. Opening my airways, and mind giving you energy positive energy! Blessed energy…..

Curious if anyone here has worked with sacred scents or herbal bletnds in their practice. What have you noticed?

I really don't feel anything at all when I meditate. I try to quiet my mind and tune into my inner self and mind to observe my thoughts but I feel nothing or experience nothing. I need help here. Please help me.

Hello everyone

As my practice grew and meditation deepened I become more aware of muscles and pressure in my head. I started playing with it during meditation and it led me to quite uncomfortable situation.

When I am undistracted and aware, during walks most of the time, I experience constant feeling like movements of muscles inside my head that cause me to feel disoriented for a moment or feel some sort of movement or pressure in the head. It happens involuntarily when I pay attention to the present. When I go for walks and talk on the phone or spend time with someone else that doesn't happen.

Did someone else experience something like that? What has helped you?

I've been doing at least an hour everyday. For several months And my meditations were starting to get vivid and intense. Now I feel like I'm starting to daydream again and the hour doesn't even feel like enough the hour feels too easy.

I started trying to focus on the breath but I hate it. I think I'm going to go back to zazen or possibly try tai chi or focus on the flame of a candle. My only worry is if I get into too many disciplines I'm worried I'll become a jack of all meditative trades and master of none.

The habit is so in me now that I'm confident that I will continue through the difficulties but I'm trying to figure out which discipline is right for me. I think it's "just sitting" but I'm unsure

I have been looking through this sub and have seen that a lot of people have found positive solutions for creating the mind-body connection. I would like to seek some advice from some of you.

I used to meditate very often, using the Silva Mind Control Method, which I found to be very useful. I wanted to know if there are any recommendations for guided meditations or methods in general that are good for regulating the nervous system? Or even just for reconnecting the body to the mind. I know the Silva method can be a bit outdated, and I want to try something new to hopefully get that habit going again.

Since the time I was meditating, I have been praying often and seeking my connection with God. It’s been very soothing as just talking to God before prayer can be very helpful but I would like to add on another method that can kind of “shock” the brain the same way you “shock” the muscle when doing a new exercise in the gym.

Would love to learn more about regulating the nervous system and trying to master my thoughts.

Thanks.

Side note: has anyone found listening to different frequencies to be useful? I’ve never tried it and have been curious.

Context: 4 months ago I felt kinda like I should get out of my regular slump of scrolling and after I broke up with my boyfriend and so I decided to go out drinking. I only had 2 drinks but had the best time ever(this was my first time) and so a couple weeks later when I decided to do it again I really didint have fun before it felt like the shackles of social pressure was off of me but this time it was worse than ever. Afterwards I had a mini mental breakdown and decided I wanted to divorce myself from worldly attachments.

Its been about a week since then ive been meditating but I cant figure out if the changes happening to me are because im becoming more at peace or because Im just becoming depressed.

Ive noticed:

i used to feel like doing "girly stuff " to feel good

But i no longer feel this way

Its now much easier to sit down and work

I find myself not really having emotions

My libido which was previously Extreemly high has been dead and I almost feel like im forcing myself

I hate socializing and avoid people at every chance possible.

Is this a normal result from meditation or should I try treating depression before indulging in meditation any responses are appreciated

Thank you in advance

To me, "the world" is a low grade, petty samsara. The world is its own, small category or group or a kind of mentality. It doesn't fit everyone in it. In my eyes, if I'm looking at the "world class", it's low energy, petty, ignorant. A kind of dormant entertainment, unrealistic, not knowing its nature. That's how I view "the world" and not everybody is involved in that state.

There was a massive weight/pressure on my whole body yet it was peaceful

I lost the control over my body as if i was paralized

My hands "clawed" involuntarily

I saw visions of beautiful tinsel curtains and sounds of swimming??

Overall felt like my body and mind rebooted

Anyone else experienced something like this before?